“After it made the circles at the bottom, I knew what it was and started laughing,” said witness Ramone Duran, in comments to The Spokesman-Review. “It was pretty funny to see that. You don’t expect to see something like that.”

The incident occurred within the Okanagan Military Operating Area (or MOA), which is restricted airspace used by Whidbey’s Growler squadrons (and others) regularly.

“The Navy holds its aircrew to the highest standards and we find this absolutely unacceptable, of zero training value and we are holding the crew accountable,” said the Navy in a statement to local CBS affiliate KREM.

“The actions of this aircrew were wholly unacceptable and antithetical to Navy core values,” the Navy added. “The Navy apologizes for this irresponsible and immature act.”

We don’t know why the pilot risked his career to do this hilarious stunt, or the potential consequences for the crew. We’ll update this story as we learn more.

Killian is an aerospace photographer and writer, with a primary focus on spaceflight and military and civilian aviation. Over the years his assignments have brought him onboard NASA's space shuttles, in clean rooms with spacecraft destined for other worlds, front row for launches of historic missions and on numerous civilian and military flight assignments.

When not working the California-native enjoys spending time with his family, traveling, storm chasing, producing time-lapses and shooting landscape and night sky imagery, as well as watching planes of course.